Holmdel School Board To Consider Acquiring Holmes Property

HOLMDEL, NJ - The Board of Education is scheduled tomorrow to consider acquiring the birthplace of Adeline "Addy" Holmes Lubkert whose ties to the community go back hundreds of years. Many people believe that the Holmes family was among the first European settlers of Monmouth County in the late 1600s and Holmes may be the basis for the name Holmdel.

Item 33 for the draft agenda of the Holmdel Township Board of Education seeks board approval to authorize school officials to submit plans to the state Department of Education for the proposed acquisition of the property from which so much of Holmdel's history emanated. The meeting begins at 8 p.m. at the William R. Satz Middle School.

The acquisition would be undertaken as an "other capital project" and would not require any debt service aid, school officials said. According to Google maps, the 3.1 acre property is within a mile of Holmdel High School and the William R. Satz Middle School. It is slightly farther - but still fewer than two miles - from Indian Hill School.

According to realtor.com, the property is not on the market but if it was, its estimated worth would be about $652,900. The single-family house on the property is 3,349 square feet split between two levels. School officials also are seeking to adjust their long-range planning to include the property. The house was built in 1892, according to the real estate site.

According to the Holmdel Historical Association, Holmes was born in 1916 in the house she died in 100 years later at 34 Crawfords Corner Road. The historical association lists her home as a "landmark house" known as Bown-Crawford-Holmford-Lukbert house.

Her Holmes ancestry goes back some 400 years. But more recently, her father John S. Holmes Jr. served as a Holmdel committeeman. Her husband, Harry K. Lubkert, was head of the Holmdel Township school board for many years. He arranged for the township to purchase the 30-acre Cross Farm property in 1960. The couple was married for more than 55 years.

According to her obituary published in the Asbury Park Press in 2016, she was known for community service, her humor and jokes. A member of the Monmouth County Board of Recreation Commissioners for 25 years, including 18 years as chairman, she also served as vice chair of the Monmouth County Republican Committee, president of the Monmouth County Federation of Republican Women and president of the Holmdel Republican Committee.

She served for many years as a trustee of the Holmdel Cemetery Company, judge of undergraduate scholarships and other leadership roles for Kappa Kappa Gamma fraternity and as a board member of the Visiting Nurse Association .

She was graduated from Goucher College in Baltimore MD., with a bachelor's degree in physics.

.The farm in Holmdel which Addy's father worked for most of his life eventually became home to the PNC Arts Center, Holmdel High School, Satz Middle School, Holmdel Park and a section of the Garden State Parkway.

School children may soon get to see inside the birthplace of Adeline "Addy" Holmes Lubkert. Image by Amanda Mills/Shutterstock.